YORBA LINDA : Girl Scouts Granted Permit for Facility

An eight-year search for a place to build a meeting facility has ended for Yorba Linda’s 110 Girl Scout troops.

The City Council, after hearing three hours of testimony both for and against building a Scout house in a residential neighborhood, voted unanimously Tuesday night to grant a conditional use permit to the Girl Scout Council of Orange County.

The decision means the Girl Scouts may go ahead with plans to build the 4,834-square-foot facility at 4652 Casa Loma Ave., across the street from the site of a future community center.

Throughout the three-hour public hearing and at a Planning Commission hearing held in September, residents voiced concerns ranging from increased noise and traffic to whether trees on the property would be saved.

“To ask homeowners surrounding the property to put up with this is straining our patience,” said one resident, Glenda Dority.

Dority told the council that residents must also deal with noise from a nearby middle school and sports fields, as well as traffic from Hurless-Barton Park.

A Girl Scout facility “adds insult to injury to people in my neighborhood,” Dority said.

Residents were particularly concerned about plans for outdoor, overnight camping at the facility and about the possibility of a swimming pool being built on the property. Although the Girl Scouts have not included a pool in the initial construction phase, officials said the organization hopes to add one at a later date.

The council restricted all activities, except overnight camping, to the hours of 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays. Overnight camping is limited to Fridays and Saturdays.

Several residents said the noise from outdoor activities would have a detrimental effect on their quality of life and would hurt their property values. Yorba Linda’s troops include more than 1,300 girls and about 970 adults.

But several Girl Scout representatives said the type of programs that would be held would produce little in the way of irritating noise.

According to Jackie Self, a member of the Orange County Girl Scout Council site selection committee, troop meetings are structured and supervised. Typically, Scouts work on activities such as learning a new skill, arts and crafts, cooking or science projects. Outdoor activities would include nature walks, knot-tying and learning to pitch a tent or roll up a sleeping bag. “Girl Scout noise is friendly and positive,” Self said. “It is no more noise than a family in a neighborhood would make.”

Robert Almeida, a consultant representing the Girl Scouts, said the organization would be willing to do “anything reasonable” to accommodate the neighbors’ concerns. The types of activities planned, he said, are compatible with typical neighborhood activities.

But resident Gerald Piper said the proposed Scout house constituted a recreational facility and a residential neighborhood was not an appropriate place for it.

“I don’t want them as neighbor in that location,” Piper said. “The concept is all wrong.”